The New School for Social Research

The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 students from the United States, as well as students from other countries.

History

Founding the New School for Social Research (1919–1933)

The New School for Social Research was founded in 1919 by a group of progressive intellectuals (mostly from Columbia University and The New Republic) who had grown dissatisfied with the growing bureaucracy and fragmentation of higher education in the United States. These included, among others, Charles Beard, John Dewey, James Harvey Robinson, and Thorstein Veblen. In its earliest manifestation, the New School was an adult education institution that gave night lectures to fee-paying students. There were no admissions requirements and the New School did not confer degrees.

The first set of lectures included courses by economists Thorstein Veblen, Wesley Clair Mitchell, and Harold Laski, though these economists did not remain on the faculty long. In the ensuing decade, the New School hosted courses by a diverse array of economists, including Leo Wolman, a labor statistician with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and Frederick Macaulay, who later formalized the financial concept bond duration. During this period, John Maynard Keynes and Benjamin Graham also gave multiple guest lectures at The New School. One lasting presence at the New School was the economist-turned-administrator Alvin Saunders Johnson, who was the school's first president.